Diamonds in the rough: A Journey of human spirituality

The purpose of my thesis was to express various aspects of human spirituality using sculpture as the vehicle for this expression. During the course of my exploration clay and glass each came to take on special metaphorical significance and it became crucial to include both materials within the sculptures. I wanted to create a marriage of materials wherein the clay and glass needed each other to make a complete statement. Various clay surfaces and glass processes were explored and will be described later

Grammatical treatment and specific language impairment: Neighborhood density & third person singular -s

The purpose of this study was to test the effect of manipulating verb neighbourhood density in treatment targeting the third person singular lexical affix. Using a single-subject experimental design, 6 pre-schoolers with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: 1) treatment with sparse verbs or 2) treatment with dense verbs in 12 sessions. The third person singular lexical affix was targeted for 12 sessions of treatment in both conditions. Treatment gain and generalization were measured as the dependent variables. Third person singular % correct change from pre-treatment to post-treatment was measured using sentence production tasks with comparisons across the two treatment conditions. Treatment gain and generalization were greater for children enrolled in the sparse condition. Preliminary clinical recommendations are made and theoretical implications are discussed relative to neighbourhood density effects on lexical activation and storage in children with SLI.National Institutes of Health DC00433, RR7031K, DC00076, DC001694 (PI: Gierut)This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics on September 2013, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.3109/02699206.2013.789928

Word learning by children with phonological delays: Differentiating effects of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original publication is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021992409000847This study examined the ability of 20 preschool children with functional phonological delays and 34 age- and vocabulary-matched typical children to learn words differing in phonotactic probability (i.e., the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence) and neighborhood density (i.e., the number of words that differ from a target by one phoneme). Children were exposed to nonwords paired with novel objects in a story and learning was measured by a picture naming task. Results showed that both groups created lexical representations for rare sound sequences from sparse neighborhoods. However, only children with typical development appeared to build on this initial lexical representation to create a full representation of the word (i.e., lexical-semantic connection and semantic representation). It was hypothesized that creating a lexical representation may be too resource demanding for children with phonological delays, leaving few resources available to create a lexical-semantic connection and/or a semantic representation

An on-line calculator to compute phonotactic probability and neighborhood density based on child corpora of spoken American English

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original publication is available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2FBRM.42.2.497An on-line calculator was developed (http://www.bncdnet.ku.edu/cml/info_ccc.vi) to compute phonotactic probability, the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence, and neighborhood density, the number of phonologically similar words, based on child corpora of American English (Kolson, 1960; Moe, Hopkins, & Rush, 1982) and compared to an adult calculator. Phonotactic probability and neighborhood density were computed for a set of 380 nouns (Fenson et al., 1993) using both the child and adult corpora. Child and adult raw values were significantly correlated. However, significant differences were detected. Specifically, child phonotactic probability was higher than adult phonotactic probability, especially for high probability words; and child neighborhood density was lower than adult neighborhood density, especially for high density words. These differences were reduced or eliminated when relative measures (i.e., z scores) were used. Suggestions are offered regarding which values to use in future research

Whole-Word versus Part-Word Phonotactic Probability/Neighborhood Density in Word Learning by Children

This is the published version

Grammatical treatment and specific language impairment: Neighbourhood density & third person singular –s

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original publication is available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/02699206.2013.789928The purpose of this study was to test the effect of manipulating verb neighbourhood density in treatment targeting the third person singular lexical affix. Using a single-subject experimental design, 6 pre-schoolers with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: 1) treatment with sparse verbs or 2) treatment with dense verbs in 12 sessions. The third person singular lexical affix was targeted for 12 sessions of treatment in both conditions. Treatment gain and generalization were measured as the dependent variables. Third person singular % correct change from pre-treatment to post-treatment was measured using sentence production tasks with comparisons across the two treatment conditions. Treatment gain and generalization were greater for children enrolled in the sparse condition. Preliminary clinical recommendations are made and theoretical implications are discussed relative to neighbourhood density effects on lexical activation and storage in children with SLI

The influence of part-word phonotactic probability/neighborhood density on word learning by preschool children varying in expressive vocabulary

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original publication is available at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8259251&fileId=S0305000910000176The goal of this study was to examine the influence of part-word phonotactic probability/neighborhood density on word learning by preschool children with normal vocabularies that varied in size. Ninety-eight children (age 2;11 – 6;0) were taught consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonwords orthogonally varying in the probability/density of the CV (i.e., body) and VC (i.e., rhyme). Learning was measured via picture naming. Children with the lowest expressive vocabulary scores showed no effect of either CV or VC probability/density, although floor effects could not be ruled out. In contrast, children with low or high expressive vocabulary scores demonstrated sensitivity to part-word probability/density with the nature of the effect varying by group. Children with the highest expressive vocabulary scores displayed yet a third pattern of part-word probability/density effects. Taken together, word learning by preschool children was influenced by part-word probability/density but the nature of this influence appeared to depend on the size of the lexicon

Using Nonword Repetition in Vocabulary Assessment

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original is available at http://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/publications/jcpslpStandardized vocabulary tests have been criticized for their cultural/experiential biases and insensitivity to word learning differences. This review discusses the utility of supplementing the diagnostic process with a processing-based measure, such as a nonword repetition task. Nonword repetition tasks have been heralded as a more sensitive indicator of individual differences in vocabulary/word learning. Evidence on the relationship between vocabulary and nonword repetition is discussed along with a review of the currently available tests of nonword repetition. Suggestions for constructing a nonword repetition task specific to the needs of individual clinicians are offered

Differentiating the effects of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on vocabulary comprehension and production: A comparison of preschool children with versus without phonological delays

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original publication is available at http://jslhr.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=1781591Purpose The purpose of this study was to differentiate the effect of phonotactic probability from that of neighborhood density on a vocabulary probe administered to preschool children with or without a phonological delay. Method Twenty preschool children with functional phonological delays and 34 preschool children with typical language development completed a 121 item vocabulary probe in both an expressive and receptive response format. Words on the vocabulary probe orthogonally varied on phonotactic probability and neighborhood density but were matched on age-of-acquisition, word frequency, word length, semantic set size, concreteness, familiarity, and imagability. Results Results showed an interaction between phonotactic probability and neighborhood density with variation across groups. Specifically, the optimal conditions for typically developing children were rare phonotactic probability with sparse neighborhoods and common phonotactic probability with dense neighborhoods. In contrast, only rare phonotactic probability with sparse neighborhoods was optimal for children with phonological delays. Conclusions Rare sound sequences and sparse neighborhoods may facilitate triggering of word learning for typically developing children and children with phonological delays. In contrast, common sound sequences and dense neighborhoods may facilitate configuration and engagement for typically developing children but not children with phonological delays due to their weaker phonological and/or lexical representations

A Cross-Sectional Comparison of the Effects of Phonotactic Probability and Neighborhood Density on Word Learning by Preschool Children

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original publication is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749596X10000070Two experiments examined the effects of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on word learning by 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Nonwords orthogonally varying in probability and density were taught with learning and retention measured via picture naming. Experiment 1 used a within story probability/across story density exposure context. Experiment 2 used an across story probability/within story density exposure context. Results showed that probability and density interacted to create optimal learning conditions. Specifically, rare/sparse sound sequences appeared to facilitate triggering of word learning. In contrast, the optimal convergence for lexical configuration and engagement was dependent on exposure context. In particular, common sound sequences and dense neighborhoods were optimal when density was manipulated across stories, whereas rare sound sequences and sparse neighborhoods were optimal when density was manipulated within a story. Taken together, children’s phonological and lexical representations were hypothesized to be interdependent on one another resulting in a convergence of form characteristics for optimal word learning